India-Books/Society
Patna, the
microcosm of contrasts that is Bihar, is a nostalgic riddle for every immigrant
son of the soil who returns home to bask in the city’s changing urban-scape. In
the last decade, the capital of Bihar has been witnessing nothing short of a
revolution – both in terms of psyche and landscape which is happy mess of new
urban metaphors - like malls, highrises, brands and big cars. They occupy every
nook of the city that is slowly waking up to the nightmare of space crunch.
Topping the
city’s war with the hype surrounding its typical socio-politics is the fact
that Mumbai is gradually discovering Bihar – as a city of drama and celluloid commerce.
Bihar has become an exotic locale in the moviegoers imagination. The struggle
to live up to the reputation as a “badland of gut and gore” is becoming tough –
for the planners as well for the residents.
The forces
of past shape the present “lie (geography)” of the city sprawled on the banks
of an-once meandering, but now choked river Ganges, India’s lifeline for
centuries. The daily beat of Patna carries in its blood the aura of the mighty
Magadh empire, the capital city of Pataliputra, E.M.Forster’s “Bankipore” (near
patna) - the inspiration behind the novel, “Passage to India”. This is a city (and
state) where three different cultures – Hinduism, Islam and Buddhism- had
merged once to smithereen away later.
In his new
book, “A City of Rats: A Short Biography of Patna (Rupa & Co)”, Amitava
Kumar takes a candid look at Patna that has grown “exponentially” as any other
Indian capital city drifting from its illustrious heritage – and yet in a
strange way being unconsciously moulded by it. Alongside the story of Patna through
personal narratives, anecdotes and history, the city fleshes itself out as an
emotional entity- breathing, moving, suffering heartaches, blues and sweating to
clean itself of the mounds of deadwood that stifles its oxygen.
Patna is a hole
of rats, Kumar says in the beginning of the book reflecting upon its state of
decay. It is infested by rats. The rodents have access to every urban landmark
- the monuments, statues and the public facilities. The rats, dead and alive, are
integral to the city’s mind space. The author sees more in them than just festering
decadence- a sense of betrayal that Patna reserves for every expat Bihari, who
has left the city. He is a rat – a ‘biradar’.
Kumar, who teaches
creative writing at the Vassar College in New York, travels beyond the book in
an informal chat with this writer. “I was becoming an outsider. The book gave
me a chance to go back and learn about what is new about the city,” Kumar said.
Patna is not
about failures as many writers spin spiels about the squalor and turbulence that
lifts the city out of its mediocre morass to become a urban musing. The story of
India’s leading contemporary artist, Subodh Gupta, begins here.
Gupta was a school boy in Khagaul, a city
outside Patna where his father worked as a railway guard. The youngest of
Gupta’s sisters made a discovery one day about a stainless steel manufacturing
company. She hit upon a scheme that turned ordinary customers into salespeople.
If you sold three “thalis”, you got two free. She made a killing selling
utensils and the family was never short of steel kitchenware.
Twenty years
later, the page turned one day. Gupta had a spiritual experience while cooking.
He realized that stainless steel utensils could lend requisite luster to his
sculptures, Kumar says in his book. The stainless “bartans” in Gupta’s art
became a global icon.
“There have been
changes,” he adds moving out of his book. “But everyday reveals that the
changes have not been enough. Someone might be inclined to say that the changes
should have carried us to a more decisive thing”. Kumar
said he wanted the individual life stories to speak of the changes and holes where
the process has sunk through.
Citing an
instance, the writer says “A man belonging to the backward Mushahar caste tells
you the story of a well meaning officer and his changing view about rats, but
then why can’t they change their view about caste.
Kumar’s arguments – though
based on a quaint logic —rings sense. The Mushahar community and rats are
intrinsically linked in Bihar – the marginal caste is Bihar’s official rat
trappers and rat eaters as well.
“Change from
above is inadequate. Everyone accepts rats in Patna, but their position on
Mushahar will not change,” Kumar said.
Kumar
comments on a variety of social issues – the high-profile wedding of Raghav and
Leela, a fiery 45-year-old poet and his young actress wife Leela, the neglect
of public institutions, the abysmal underdevelopment just outside the city
precincts, the plight of women - who
have been denied social status like men but have been given bicycles to ride to
school.
However,
rats are central to the saga, they scurry in a file, drink seized liquor at a
police station and prompts Kumar identify himself with one. “I try to turn the
imagery of the rat on its head,” he says.
The writer tries
to look for the Patna of his childhood – the Patna qalam (school of nature art)
and its glorious history – between the stories he hears and in his conversation
with friends. “On the morning after my 11th birthday, the guests were unable to leave
home. There was smoke billowing in the distance. The JP Movement had begun,”
Kumar recalled.
Three years
later, Bihar showed the way, as the former editor of The Statesman Sunanda K.
Dutta-Ray wrote. “The movement ultimately led to the end of the Indira Gandhi
government. When I think of Patna now, it is not showing the way by changing
realities but by predicting the socio-political future of India,” the writer
pointed out.
Patna
reveals that there has been a “shift in the power balance from the upper caste to
other social groups. But even that shift is slightly flawed. It has left those
at the bottom untouched”. Even as the upper caste lost political power, they
still have economic power that is reminder that things have not changed much.
“That struck
me a lot in my last visit,” Kumar observed. The older generation of morning
walkers in a big park adjacent to his parents’ home in Patna has not outgrown
their “fetish” for caste-specific banter even after more than three decades of
the movement for social justice. “Caste is so deeply ingrained in the psyche,”
he said, urging “change”.
Comparing
Bihar with other states, Kumar said “unlike many other states, Bihar was more
secular”. There has been greater movement of educated people from the state
outside than Gujarat and Kerala that copes with high outward migration.
“I believe
in the policy of circulation and enrichment. More people from Bihar should go
out and more should come back- the city (state) should be like Paris,” Kumar
said.
Kumar’s
obsession with his native turf will spill over into his next title- a novel
about Bihar set in America.
-
Madhusree
Chatterjee
